Mourinho ‘accepts one-year prison sentence’ over tax fraud

Jose Mourinho has reportedly accepted a one-year prison sentence as part of a plea bargain deal with prosecutors accusing him of a £2.9million tax fraud.

The Manchester United manager has accepted a six-month jail sentence for each of the two financial crimes he was accused of after accepting wrongdoing as part of the agreement with prosecutors, according to respected Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

The investigating court in Madrid which has led the criminal probe into Mourinho – Pozuelo de Alarcon Court No.4 – is expected to be informed about the deal in the coming days.

El Mundo reported the 55-year-old, whose future at United has been called into question after a disappointing start to the season, had also agreed to pay a fine totalling £1.78 m representing 60 per cent of the alleged amount defrauded.

First-time offenders in Spain do not normally serve jail sentences of two years or less – meaning the one-year jail term Mourinho has reportedly accepted for two counts of tax fraud will almost certainly be suspended at a later date after the investigating court has been officially informed of the situation.

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Mourinho’s tax affairs were placed under new scrutiny last year.

Prosecutors alleged Mourinho owed the Spanish state almost £2.9m in undeclared revenue relating to image rights in 2011 and 2012.

The allegations involved claims false information was given to Spain’s Tax Agency during a 2015 probe, prompting prosecutors to reopen a case that had been archived after Mourinho paid a six-figure fine.

Mourinho was summonsed to court following revelations by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) Consortium which includes Spanish newspaper El Mundo, German newspaper Der Spiegel and the Sunday Times.

One of the claims was that the Spanish taxman was supplied with fictitious expenses to make it appear an offshore shell company Mourinho benefitted from was functioning as an active firm.

The United boss played down any suggestion of wrongdoing after a brief behind-closed-doors hearing at Pozuelo de Alarcon Court of Investigation No.4 last November.

He insisted he had left Spain four years earlier with the “information and conviction his tax situation was perfectly legal” and regularised his situation a couple of years later after he was told to pay more cash following a tax probe.

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He told reporters: “I answered, I didn’t contest it, I paid and I signed an official agreement with the state under which everything was definitively closed.

“That’s why I’ve been here five minutes today to say to the judge exactly what I’m telling you.”

His claims led to inaccurate reports at the time he had resolved his tax problems.

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El Mundo reported earlier this year that Mourinho had reached an out-of-court settlement with Spanish prosecutors over his tax case, but details of the agreement were not revealed at the time.

Former Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo accepted a two-year prison sentence – also set to be suspended – earlier this summer after reaching a deal with prosecutors over his tax fraud case.

He also agreed to pay a fine of more than £15m after pleading guilty to evading £13.1m in tax on image rights between 2011 and 2014.